


A Defining Word

by skeating



Category: Original Work
Genre: Freeform, Gay, Gay Romance, M/M, Original Fiction, Original work - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-11-17 04:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeating/pseuds/skeating
Summary: The boy in the library-- no, his name is Sean, Nick'd have to remember that-- turns out to be much more of a challenge to ignore than Nick was originally prepared for. He's not a distant crush who can be neglected as the school year starts and Nick returns to teaching, especially when Sean appears in the front seat of his English lectures. They struggle together until "together" becomes a much more defining word, and they go to drastic measures to avoid the legalities that begin to affect their lives and relationship.





	1. First Confrontation

His pencil eraser nudged the corner of his mouth, pushing his lip sideways slightly in a kind of pout. His eyes narrowed speculatively as he drew the pencil away, pressing its tip back onto the paper in front of him, scratching whatever math equation he must have just begun to solve. The student huffed a sigh after his writing stalled for a moment before tossing the pencil into his textbook, leaning back in his chair, and running his hands through his short blonde curls. He glanced up and around the library in an obvious attempt to collect his thoughts before returning to his work, and he smiled privately to himself, quickly and as if no one would notice, as he bent over again and reached for his thrown pencil.

 _I really need to stop. These aren’t even observations anymore, it’s just creepy._ A man two tables back shook his head at his thought, perching his chin on his palm, elbow resting on the corner of his laptop. His mind wandered again, in only a few moments completely oblivious to his warning himself to stop. His teeth worried his bottom lip, and he caught himself in a grin as his imagination conjured a scene where he had the actual courage to walk over to the boy he couldn’t help but stare at and attempt to put action to his thoughts.

The man felt a sharp pain enter his left side, digging into his ribs. He flinched away, glaring at the offender, his friend seated beside him.

“Thought you were over him,” his friend said with a smirk and a suspicious glint in his eye. “At least that’s what you told me last week when we were here. You know, that day when you were pretending you were writing your lesson, and yet your eyes didn’t once leave the back of his head?”

“Shut up. I did write my lesson.”

His friend snickered, shoving his shoulder lightly. “Uh, huh. Nick, we both know you can’t lie for your life. Actually, scratch that, you can get away with some stuff, but not when you’re into someone. And especially not that guy.”

Nick glanced back to the boy a few tables in front of them. “I don’t even know his name, how could I be into him?”

“You like his face, whatever.” His friend kicked him under the table with the side of his foot. “You could know his name if you actually did something about it. And it doesn’t exactly help your case when you sit behind him every week and just… just watch him. Like, dude, come on.”

“Shut up, Ben, I get it. And I’m not going to do anything about it. It’s not worth it.”

“Not worth what? Getting rejected?”

Nick hung his head slightly, examining the keys of his laptop and not answering. Ben rolled his eyes and turned back to his own work. The two sat in a companionable, yet slightly tense silence for a moment before Ben muttered, “Check it out.”

The boy had packed away his books and slung his backpack over a shoulder, and he was walking towards the back exit behind all of the tables. Nick’s eyes widened minutely before he lowered his eyes and tapped aimlessly away on his keyboard. Ben leaned precariously backward in his chair as the boy passed them, and he held out a hand towards him.

“Hey, man, hold up a sec.”

The term “mini-heart attack” often connotes an idea of panic, a helplessness in a situation that immediately triggers a much stronger flight response than fight. It comes from a frightening pressure on the chest, ultimately the result of an assault of anxiety from the occurrence of the unexpected, which, in this case, was the idiotic initiative of Ben.

“What the hell are you—,” Nick hissed at Ben, who was clambering out of his chair to go talk to the boy. Nick kept his head down, eyes wide and desperate, shoulders rigid as he sat on the edge of his seat. Exactly the kind of mature reaction one would expect from a grown man decently into his twenties upon seeing someone mildly attractive.

He didn’t turn in the direction of the conversation they were having, but he was sure it was about him. About his… interest.

Nick found himself smiling again despite himself and the situation. It’s not just an interest. The beginning of the school year’s coming up, and this boy he’s seen has been in here the past few weeks probably finishing up his summer work. Nick saw him in passing the first time, immediately sparking some kind of attraction, and the guy was there the next week, too. He’d been at the same table every time, most likely a college student. It wasn’t easy to tell if he was returning or not, but he looked too old to be a freshman. Hopefully he’s not a freshman. That’d be worse that the situation was already. In any case, for Nick to repeatedly come back to the library to “write his lessons plans” was too much of a stretch for him to continue convincing himself that it wasn’t actually because of this guy. “Interest” wouldn’t be enough of a defining word.

It wasn’t exactly worth it to continue entertaining these imagines of, per say, being able to actually know the guy, disregarding how much he might want more than that in something like an opportunity to grab his hand as they walk together from a restaurant some summer night. A flurry of excitement tossed around his stomach as he thought of the possibilities. Ben was actually courageous enough to step up and make a move for his friend, and it could actually work out. Maybe.

He internally berated himself for getting so carried away. There was no actual way it would happen. The guy had never even so much as glanced up as he walked past each day, so why would it make sense to think that he had remotely noticed Nick’s being there?

_That’s right. It wouldn’t._

Nick blinked out of his thoughts as Ben fell back into the chair beside him. He attempted to remain as pokerfaced as possible, but the curiosity occupying his eyes gave him away.

Ben grinned foolishly at him as he checked that the boy was continuing his way out of the building. “Guess you want to know what that was about.”

Nick frowned, sending Ben another one of his glares. “You can’t just do something like that. What did you—did you say anything? About me, I mean, you know…”

Ben’s smile didn’t falter as he answered, “Yeah, he seems like a good guy. I think I did mention how you wanted to take him home—”

“Ben!”

“God, Nick, take a breath,” he said, laughing. “I asked him what classes he was taking. He’s a junior, twenty-one. Lives off campus with a buddy of his. His name is Sean.”

 _Sean_.

Nick sighed before slumping in his chair. “Alright. Thanks, I guess, but that wasn’t really called for.”

“You’d never have gotten his name anyway. What’s up with you? You’d put on that cocky, brave front for anyone else you were into,” Ben asked as he gave him an inquisitive look.

He shrugged dismissively. “It’s not real, I guess.”

Ben clapped a hand on Nick’s shoulder as he said, “Your confidence? Or your chances with this guy?”

A third glare was pointed at him. “Leave it alone. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got bigger things to worry about anyway with the school year coming up. They’re making me teach two more classes than I did last year because there were so many interested students.”

Ben let out a low whistle. “Sounds like you’re going to be busy,” he said with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah,” the other man agreed, nodding quietly. “It’s only a few more hours a week, though. Should be fine. Plus it comes with a raise, so I guess it’s worth it.”

His friend hummed in agreement before standing, his chair pushed backward by the backs of his knees. He smiled kindly at Nick as he said, “It’s late, man. We should get going. Your boy’s not here anymore anyway.”

Nick couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “It’s barely late. Going home now would be a waste of the last few days of summer.”

“But we’ve both still got lessons to plan out.”

He followed Ben in standing. “Fine, you go to sleep or whatever you don’t feel like telling me.”

Ben’s jaw dropped in retort. “Nick, that’s not—”

“No, it’s fine,” he said, pushing in his chair and tossing his laptop in his backpack. He was fully aware that Ben probably didn’t have other intentions besides really going home to work or relax, but he enjoyed tormenting him a bit, keeping back a smile as he teased him. It was a task to mix his voice evenly with sounding offended and yet keeping it remotely light and friendly, but he didn’t want Ben to leave thinking he was in the wrong.

Ben made a face, his mouth contorting into a frown. His eyebrows began to knit as his voice dropped in a plead, “Nick, I swear this isn’t—”

“Ben,” Nick said with a smile as he held out his hand. “It’s good. I get it. I’ll catch up with you later, right?”

His eyes softened immediately in relief, and he replied, “Yeah. Tomorrow, coffee or something. I’ll see you. Good luck with that.” He jerked his head towards the back door, which immediately gave the impression he was looking for. Nick’s face colored visibly, and he mimicked Ben’s earlier frown.

“Shut up.”

“Uh huh. Night, Nick,” Ben said over his shoulder after grabbing his own bag and lifting a hand in a wave on his way out.

Nick turned back into the nearly empty library, the only sounds left being the whir of the overhead fans and a slight buzz of the fluorescent lights with the occasional tapping on a keyboard or the turning pages of some well-worn book. He sighed, picking up his pack and dropping it on the table. His eyes were naturally drawn to the seat the boy had vacated minutes ago. If he only had the nerve to _go up to him_.

Regardless, the boy—no, _Sean_ —wouldn’t go for him. It never worked like that. Sean didn’t show any interest while Ben was talking to him. He had stopped only because he _was_ stopped to answer a few of Ben’s questions, and they didn’t even mention Nick’s name.

He shook his head, his face falling further. He’d have to give up on these thoughts, on this want, or he’d just end up getting too ahead of himself and coming out hurt. That’s what always happened, wasn’t it? Not always some fairytale love story with the two coming out happily together in the end. And no, that wasn’t a gay joke.

Pushing the back door open, he exited the building, and the summer Delaware sunset highlighted the sky in deep shades, accompanied by the cooling night breezes whistling throughout the town. His free hand unoccupied by his bag was shoved in his pocket, and his shoes, kicking aside gravel, scuffed at the sidewalk lazily. Soon enough he’d be gasping for air underneath piles of need-to-be graded papers and lessons that he had procrastinated until the last striking moment of inspiration. Sean's going to be the last thing he has time for, and definitely the least prominent thing on his mind. Distraction is the best cure for addiction, right? Replacement with hard work?

Nick’s footsteps faltered.

_Wait, is that what this is? An addiction?_

That’s quite a governing word. In this case, probably too radical. Irrational. Unrealistic. It was a stupid, mindless interest in a person whose life would never directly cross with his enough for anything worthy to come out of it. And it’ll pass, he was sure of that.

When Nick had reached his car amidst his slightly self-detrimental thoughts, he tossed his bag onto the passenger seat, but he sat with his fingers tightly wrapped around the steering wheel for a moment before pressing his foot into the acceleration pedal. There was barely any time left before classes really did start, so maybe he should be taking Ben’s advice into his own account and actually finishing up his lectures. Work like that doesn’t just appear bundled up, completed and tied with a red ribbon.

The silence in the car should have been evident and even more claustrophobically lonely, but Nick was so devoured by the paths his thoughts were scavenging that he wouldn’t care or consider it even if the eerie quiet were pointed out. It was a half-conscious state of mind, where his controls of the car were on autopilot, bringing him home without his having to think about it. He trusted these instincts up until the point where he had driven right past his turn, with no notice of it until he was approaching the next stop sign. His hand went to flick on his directional, and yet his wrist stayed hesitantly immobile, not moving the switch down even remotely. He remained at the corner for moments longer until a vehicle pulled up behind him and flashed their high beams. Making a split-second decision, he ignored the left turn and continued straight.

What’s so bad about home?

Home was empty. Home had been empty for years, and the only other time there were any other sounds besides his own were the Thursday nights spent with Ben as he forced him to watch that television show in which Ben refused to get interested, or when his brother Jonathan visited while he was passing through the area on decidedly rare occasion. Home was full of personalized rooms in the penthouse of some expensive apartment building near the University, but it remained undeserving of the title. It wasn’t truly a home until there was someone worthy of achieving the cozy name living there alongside. This was merely a house, a residence. He only needed it for a bed, a shower, and to scramble a few eggs in the morning. It was entirely disconnected to him otherwise, and it was most definitely not the place to be right then, or so his subconscious decided in driving straight through the intersection rather than turning as he had every other day.

His foot and hands worked together manipulating the car with a mind of their own. He was solely interested in seeing the possibilities of the night, and quite frankly, anything seemed to be a better solution than pulling into his driveway, ascending the stairs, and sitting at his desk to stare at a blankly blinking cursor on a Word document for hours.

Nick pulled into a parking space on the side of the street, and he pushed two quarters into the meter before turning to face Dior’s Bar and Tap. He took on a minutely confused expression as he wondered how the hell his barely paying attention would have had him end up there, but he moved through the front door anyway, a small bell chiming his entrance. Its pleasant ring was immediately drowned out by the crowd inside, a mix of college students from the area and older people sharing a drink in commemoration of the ending summer.

He pulled over a stool and drummed his fingers along the counter, still mentally interrogating himself as to what his motives there might be. The bartender came over with an easy smile, and Nick’s mouth formed and requested the name of some drink he saw on the chalkboard behind the shelves, all barely registered in his mind.

He turned halfway in his seat as he waited, and his eyes roamed the busy room, searching for anything and yet nothing at the same time. When a man in a blue flannel and jeans came to the counter asking for two more beers, Nick thought he could quite naturally hide his reaction to the man’s appearance. Tall and somewhat rugged-looking with shaggy brown hair and slight stubble, the man reflected the bartender’s smile when he took his beers in one hand, turning Nick’s way as he left a ten on the counter.

Whatever Nick thought he could easily hide at that moment was shattered when the man narrowed his eyes in his direction and gave a somewhat uncomfortable smirk. He tilted his head down in a nod as he said, “Sorry, man, not lookin’ for that tonight… or ever, really, y’know?”

Not expecting to have been that obvious, Nick startled on his stool, his eyes widening in slight disbelief. _I must be losing my edge. Keep it together, Quade, you’re clearly better than this_. He didn’t deny it, knowing that he had no chance of convincing the guy that he hadn’t been checking him out.

“I… yeah, sorry, no problem. Didn’t mean to bother you,” Nick said, maintaining eye contact though all the instincts in his body were screaming at him to look away. He offered the man a small, sincere smile in an attempt to ward off any awkward tension, but the man immediately returned it, obviously not too uncomfortable with the situation.

“Don’t worry about it, man. It’s no big deal,” the man returned easily. He glanced behind himself, giving a nod to someone in the crowd. “There’s actually a friend of mine who could benefit from this. He’s been meaning to meet someone tonight anyway. You interested?”

Nick paused, unsure of what to say. It’d been years since he’d considered doing something like this with a person he had never met before, but then again, it was a distraction he seemed to be looking for. He looked out into the groups of dancing people, most of them swaying drunkenly or entirely embarrassing themselves, before turning back to the man.

His eyebrows furrowed closer together as he answered, not as confidently as he had hoped, “Yeah, I guess so. Let me just talk to him first.”

The man held his hand out, which Nick promptly took in his own. “Aaron, by the way, and the guy’s name is Will. I’ll introduce you.”

Downing the rest of his glass, Nick hesitantly slipped off his stool. He jerked his chin at Aaron, and they both weaved through the stubborn congregation, the people too tipsy to recognize those trying to move by them. The table the two were approaching was surrounded by a pair of girls, one with frizzy brown hair and smooth, dark skin and the other sporting a pink tint to her curling blonde hair along with square glasses missing the lenses. The boy next to them had a sharp jaw and shortly cropped fair hair, built as if he just stepped off a military base. He seemed quick to smile or add a line to the conversation at which the three were lightly laughing, and as Nick drew closer, they all looked up expectantly.

Aaron was the first to speak, and he put a hand on Nick’s shoulder as he addressed his friends. He looked at all of them evenly, his gaze not lingering on the boy at the table even if he were the reason Nick had come over in the first place.

“Guys, this is Nick, and he seems pretty cool, so he’s going to hang out with us for a bit if it’s good with you all,” he said, and the three at the table searched Nick’s face, yet not unkindly.

The girl with the dark hair showed him a wide, interested grin, and when she spoke, her voice was warm and amiable. She said with a nod, “Hey, how’s it going? I’m Gabby.” The blonde girl and the boy followed suit, both saying hello, their voices overlapping before they said their names. The girl was Tara, and the boy, as Nick was already aware of, was Will.

Aaron pulled up a chair from a neighboring table and slid it next to Will as he addressed Nick, “Take a seat, man, and I’ll order us a round.”

It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it might have originally been if Nick hadn’t had the pool of liquor warming his stomach and strengthening his nerve. The table fell into an easy spread of conversation, quick one-liners and jokes at everyone’s expense tossed into the interactions as well. Nick found himself relaxed and confident within only a few minutes, and he was unconsciously leaning towards Will, who was showing no sign of what Aaron had mentioned to Nick earlier at the bar.

Two rounds later blended into three—and four if they happened to remember that much the following morning— and the five of them were resting against the edge of the table to support themselves. There was more touching, more laughter, and generally a much better time, Nick having completely forgotten about the boy in the library and basically every other even slightly prevalent worry at the time. Only once Aaron looked at his phone and exclaimed the early morning hour to them did they realize that it was past time to head home, and they exchanged numbers for future reference. It would take a bit of concentration to remember their contacts in the future, but even Nick, tilting towards the wall as he stumbled to the door, could realize that they were good people for an entertaining time.

The bartender was behind the counter running a wet cloth along the glass, so Nick dropped a few dollars there instead of on the back table. As he turned to wave a final goodbye to the group, he noticed Will not far behind him, and he was shrugging his coat on as he purposefully, if still ungracefully, followed Nick to the door.

“Leaving without giving me a chance to say goodbye?” Will asked when he was standing beside Nick in the entryway. He put a hand to the doorframe for support.

Nick shook his head, looking back to the others. “’S not like that. I think I already said I’d catch you all later back there, but I was gonna wave again before heading out.”

“Yeah,” Will said, ushering him to step outside, “Not really what I meant, you know.”

Nick only attempted to raise an eyebrow as he reached for his phone to call a taxi. He and Will descended the few stairs together to the empty sidewalk, the night warm still and nobody in sight.

Will continued, “I figured you came here to forget something, right?” His words were surprisingly controlled, though he had the same amount to drink as the others.

Gazing down the abandoned street, Nick shrugged quietly, not quite remembering what he came to forget, but he counted that as a win in his book. The alcohol in his system dulled the attempts of the rising anxiety at the inkling that he had forgotten something important, and with his simple thoughts at the moment, he was more preoccupied with how close the other man was standing than any initializing reason why he had come to the bar in the first place.

“Right, well I think I wanna help you forget about it even further, if you’d be willing,” Will said, looking up through his eyelashes at him as he shoved his hands in his pockets.

Nick’s eyes sharpened slightly as he turned to look at him. He answered with more restraint than he thought he could manage, “You’re up for that? ‘Cause I think I’m up for that, yeah.” His speech wasn’t nearly as collected as Will’s was, but he managed to stand upright and still, not immediately appearing drunk.

One of them called a taxi, and the rest of the night moved too quickly for either of them to fully comprehend when the sun rose again. It wasn’t so much a matter of who splayed who across the sheets so much as it was a living-in-the-moment-and-the-feeling kind of night. Altogether, Nick would later mark it down as mostly a cognitive failure on his part as he barely remembered the people’s faces, and most definitely not their names, though he figured they had ended up in his phone at some point. He knew he had probably enjoyed himself as it was happening, but while that was important, the images of the library boy would rush into his head the moment he realized he didn’t recognize the man sleeping next to him in the bed as he woke the following day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter of my original work, so it'd be great if I could get some constructive (or not) criticism in the comments, if you're willing to go further after reading this monster of an initialization to what could become a book.  
> I'm going to try to post often? I would say that I can't be held to that promise, and yet at the same time I don't want to lose inspiration for this storyline, so I'll have to update somewhat often just to keep the stream going.  
> Lemme know what you think.


	2. Hangover Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick wakes up next to a stranger, his name forgotten in the haze of a hangover, and has some defining thoughts in a coffee shop before being swept away by his lesson plans before the start of the school year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys-- this is important. I changed Library Boy's name. Same pronunciation, different spelling. It was hitting too close to home. This chapter's a lot shorter, but it's just a quick filler before the fun starts.   
> And look at that-- I actually posted it a week after the first chapter. You should be impressed because I know I wasn't expecting that.

Sunlight was already streaming through the windows to the left of the bed when Nick’s exhausted eyes finally gained the strength to crack open. A sharp flash of pain ricocheted through his brain before he was even remotely able to register where he was, and he groaned, rolling to his left and burying his face in his pillow to escape the light. Someone shifted beside him, and that someone was copying his pained noises before pulling the sheets over his head.

Nick felt a hand brush over his bare stomach, and he braced himself to open his eyes again slowly, giving his head enough time to adjust to the terrible rays of white light. He blinked hard a few times before color began to return to the room, and he could make out the windows, the rest of the bed, and then eventually the short hallway that led to the rest of the apartment. His own hand moved to grasp the one lazily moving over his abdomen, and he pushed it to the side as he sat up with another groan.

When he reached over to check the time on his phone, the hand returned to trace his spine, and he couldn’t halt the spike of nervousness that surfaced at the feeling of the man’s fingertips. The man next to him uttered an expletive in a deep, scratchy morning voice, and the agitation in Nick’s stomach strengthened, something he couldn’t quite place as a positive or negative feeling. His phone read just before ten o’clock, and he sat up in place. The sheets pooled around his waist, and whoever was beside him pushed his head out from underneath the covers, moaning at the paining flush of light embracing his face.

The man’s worn voice spoke again, “I’m starving, but getting up seems like a really bad idea right now, so I’m just going to…” He finished his thought with action, managing to pull Nick back down against him and pressing a kiss to the back of Nick’s neck.

Nick let out a startled laugh, but he didn’t yet fight the strong arms that enveloped him. His mind raced to find any attainable hint or memory of the man’s name, but the fantastic headache he was currently sporting was not aiding his train of thought in any way. Regardless, he came up empty handed and was left replacing his search of the man’s name for a departure strategy instead. The situation would be awkward enough when the guy realized Nick couldn’t actually remember who he was or the events at the bar the night previous, so if he could just slip out easily without a great number of questions, he could get back to his normal life and pretend this never happened. Honestly, it was an embarrassment to him, a kind of shame of falling back into his younger habits. Getting out of the situation as soon as possible seemed to be the best option.

Covering the man’s hands with his own before removing them enough to break away from his grasp, Nick maneuvered his way out of the tangle of sheets and sat on the edge of the bed. He decided blaming his early leaving on a fabricated job was the safest decision and would result in the least amount of skepticism, so he slid off the mattress and into his floored pair of shorts.

“I, uh, I’ve got a meeting in an hour, but I’ve got to drop home first to clean up and all, so I should go,” he said with a strong attempt to keep his voice steady and convincing.

Will’s disapproval was evident in his sounding grunt, but he didn’t protest further as he threw his arm over his eyes. Nick barely sustained any guilt at the thought of ditching, but he was preoccupied with the anxiety of just what he had done the night before, considering he had only faint recollection of its events.

“Yeah, so I’ll just see you around,” Nick said before scooping up his jacket from where it had been haphazardly tossed by the door. He was already moving past the short hallway before Will had a chance to answer, but it seemed more than likely that with the hangovers they were both carrying, company was not the best idea at the time.

The sun was even more glaringly painful outside the apartment building. Eager to take cover in a darker place, Nick hurried towards a small coffee shop he could see down the block, and he shaded his eyes with a hand along the sidewalk before ducking through the door. He ordered one of the stronger brews to go, hoping to fight the headache, which was definitely something he hadn’t experienced to such an extent in quite a while. After he collected his cup he headed to a small table in the far back furthest away from the windows. The area was dimly lit, a nice reprieve to the aggravation light caused to his headache, but he still leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

He could recall the foreign feeling urging him to drive past his street and instead to the bar, where he vaguely remembered talking to some man and his group of friends. What they had talked about was still too obscure, but he could recall the circle’s smiles and hear the laughter, so it seemed to have been a good time. The rest of the night was just blurs, all the following events blended together, leaving him feeling essentially perturbed with a fearful hope that he hadn’t done anything too regretful. He still couldn’t remember the man’s name.

The wash of anxiety flowed back when he thought of the lesson plans that were waiting in his bag, which was still sitting in his car, so he pushed to his feet with a groan and dropped his empty cup in the trash on the way out. He stood just outside the door for a moment, keeping his eyes closed against the sun-induced flare of pain, which had dulled considerably after the coffee.

Nick rolled his eyes. He wasn’t some college student getting wasted on the weekends, and he sure as hell was too old for sloppy behavior, but he was ironically acting just like those he was paid to teach. He’d have to get his act together generally soon to give off that good first impression that all the new and shiny faces in his classroom were hoping to see. But that meant actually getting down to business and finishing his work.

_You know, that day when you were pretending you were writing your lesson, and yet your eyes didn’t once leave the back of his head?_

Ben’s words, imprinted in his mind, reappeared for a moment as Nick's palm pressed against his forehead in self-realization. His entire reasoning for going to the bar last night, something he had blatantly oppressed in his mind, pretending it hadn’t even existed, cropped up just in the front of his focus. It was the same culprit causing his procrastination. Normally he was completely on schedule when he finished his work in the beginning of July, leaving the rest of the month for just quick touchups or room for new ideas. This year was completely altered and offset because of that damn distraction, that nuisance in his life showing up as that boy in the library.

_Oh shut up, you know you adore this “distraction”._

That was beside the point. The actual focus of the matter was the outstandingly obvious fact that the library boy—Sean, dammit—was apparently more than a passing thought or a temporary obstruction in his usual plans. It was going to take a lot more than alcohol and a night with a stranger to clear him from his mind.

~*~

He had to call a taxi to fetch his car from where he left it at the bar last night, but it gave him the perfect opportunity to kid himself on the issues at hand. He rapidly became entirely dedicated to the idea that drowning himself in his work as soon as possible was an ideal way of getting past his distraction. He didn’t miss his street on the drive to his apartment this time, and once he was seated and settled at his desk in his office, he pulled out his curricula sheets and began typing out crude outlines of lesson plans. The rhythm came easier the longer he was at it as he fell back into his comfortable, yearly routine, and by the time the day was finished, he had finalized the rest of the lessons he had started for his British Literature class. He set them aside with a satisfying and finalized _thunk_ before turning on the news and eventually going to bed. 

The short amount of time that was left in summer rushed by as he really did become somewhat caught up in his work. His days were spent waking up late as per usual, as a bed really was incredibly more alluring in its luxury than a desk’s spinning chair, before typing up however many days of lecture ideas as possible without getting caught up in other preoccupations. The Internet, just one of these many recreations, really was entirely useful when one was trying to focus and time-manage successfully. Things such as trending videos or pictures of wherever his friends had just gone on vacation were truly motivating when it came to finishing his numerous tasks, and they were only able to sidetrack him for a handful of wasted hours a day.  

Besides just work, Nick was able to have lunch with Ben every once in a while, and he still forced him to sit through those Thursday night episodes, even though they both were fully aware he was in no way paying attention to any of them. Nick occasionally met up with some others, went to the city or watched televised games with friends, and he was soon setting his alarm instead of allowing himself to sleep in all morning.

He almost acceded to forgetting about Library Boy. He never came up in conversation anymore, and there were no nights spent lying in bed dreaming of different scenarios in which Nick might actually speak to him and make something of it. Nick’s work had nearly taken over, and the year would start with no time squandered on the reminiscence of the boy. His time could only be spent by worthwhile things.

Nick really had himself nearly entirely convinced of this by the end of August. He figured he would start at the head of his class the next day with an easygoing smile and an unfaltering confidence addressing his students, and it would all be fine. Nothing would be too different, and he was already completely moved on. Thoroughly past those library visits. Utterly finished with the whole affair. There was no chance anything could ever come of the past anyway.

_So why do I still react at the mere sound of his name?_

_Why do I remember his name at all?_


	3. Dice off the Table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of classes, and Nick's excited to be able to stand behind the podium again. His elation is altered greatly when he recognizes a face he had never thought he'd see again, and the face is right in the front row of his first class.

 

The fourth time the obnoxious blaring went off, Nick’s hand was slapping the top button on his alarm clock to stop it before he turned it off altogether. He sighed, tossing himself back into his pillows, and fought the urge to close his eyes again. There were only so many times he could hit snooze before he really would be late for work.

A blanket of anxiety settled into his stomach at the intimidation of the upcoming year, how it was starting from the very beginning with the summer now officially over. There was only so much he could prepare for, but he forced the thoughts out of his mind before they could get too out of hand. Once he was telling himself for the third time that he should actually stand up at some point, he slipped out of bed to make his mandatory morning dose of coffee.

He loitered around the kitchen in his pajama pants and with a warm mug in his hand until he only had five minutes to dress and start driving towards the university in order to be on time, but as last-minute projects seemed to be his specialty lately, he was prepared and descending the stairs nearly exactly on schedule. The drive over consisted of a voice in the back of his head uncouthly whispering that he should turn around and go back to bed, but the buzz from a few sips of his travel cup muffled it.

Smiling when he entered the campus of the school, he saw a few early-rising students, each with a coffee cup in hand, staggering to their respective buildings. His previous anxiety was mostly replaced with exhilaration at the prospect of his own new students, and he was lucky enough to be one of the few people in the world who honestly and wholeheartedly loved what he did for a living. He might not be caught readily agreeing to it, but he was genuinely happy that the year was starting again.

A few blocks away from the main campus was the English building, a large three-story stone-faced house, the front lined with bay windows with larger rectangular ones above. The few parking spaces in front were already mainly filled with the cars of the two other professors and any of the lucky students who had gotten there early enough to take an unreserved spot. He pulled into his usual place by the front entrance, gathered his briefcase and coffee cup, and hurried past the porch to prepare the first lesson in the few minutes he had to spare.

A wave of comfortability washed over him with the ever-present, slightly musty aroma in his classroom. He was back in his domain, an environment where he had control and could play out any situation how he pleased. He smirked to himself as he began setting up his laptop on the small front desk, and he hooked it up to the rolling Smartboard as he fell back into his routine.

With the University having been around since the mid-eighteenth century, most of the buildings were still the original houses, many with a few modifications to keep them stable and running. Because of this, though, the English building was really just a centuries-old house made into a school building. Its interior appeared just as a historical home might, but three of the rooms within it, still decorated with antique paintings, fireplaces, and thresholds, contained scattered desks with a teacher’s podium, personal desk, and the Smartboard up front. These classrooms contrasted greatly with those of more modern Universities, though Delaware did manage to sport its own contemporary labs and various other buildings with glass walls and new technology.

Maybe the fact that the classroom was at some point used as a dining or living room made it that much more comfortable for Nick. It carried that homey feeling, something he could see helping the students relax as well, as it wasn’t quite a strict and bare room with sterile walls and rows upon rows of desks for boring lectures. These kind of lessons with a small space and only a few fitting desks allowed for the entire year to be more intimate anyway; he wasn’t standing half an amphitheater away, hoping that the students in the back might be paying attention to his voice projecting through a microphone.

When he was finishing calibrating the Smartboard, he heard a few chattering voices approaching from the front hall. His stomach lurched nervously, but it was really more out of general incitement than any kind of concern. A boy with short brown hair and an easy grin ducked his head through the doorway, and Nick ushered him in with a wave of his hand. The boy’s friends quickly followed, and they filled the seats in the second row.

Nick turned his back to face the board as he heard others making their way into the building, both to his class and to the other two in the house. A casual grin spread across his face as he started talking, falling into habit, and the students instantly quieted down.

He picked up a pen and drew a straight, black, horizontal line across the screen, and he followed this by branching the line into two, red stretching towards the top right corner, and blue reaching towards the bottom right.

Starting easily, he announced, “Alright, guys, I’m Professor Quade. Welcome to my favorite class, Creative Narration, because it’s so much more entertaining than any other comprehensive or analysis class, and we get to—”

He turned around. His heart stopped. He was surrounded by new, eager faces, and yet at the front seat just to the left of his desk was a single recognizable one. And regardless of how deeply he had attempted to shove the memory of that face to the back of his mind, it was entirely ready to shoot flares right back to the forefront of his focus. He wasn’t ever supposed to see this boy again; the university was massive, and the odds that he would be appearing in one of the more exclusively chosen classes was slim to none, and yet…

Nick blinked hard and took a deep breath before forcing a smile back on his face. He tried to pick up his forgotten sentence where it had been dropped in place, and he tossed in that easy, confident tone that seemed to make little college students deem him worthy of listening to.

“Ah, sorry about that. Thought I might’ve left the stove on from this morning, and had a bit of a heart attack there,” he said. There were a couple of short laughs from the group, and though he tried valiantly to avert his eyes, his gaze was brought straight back to the boy in front to gauge his reaction. Library Boy was doodling in the front cover of the notebook he brought, most likely with no idea of the stress he was inducing in his teacher’s chest.

The hour passed laggardly, his focus divided between the class and studying that damned front-row student, as Nick introduced the students to what the year was going to contain. A majority of them had groaned, rolling their eyes, upon seeing the pages of syllabi uploaded to their online course page. It was better than those other teachers, Nick had been sure to tell them, as some professors put vague concepts to cover on their syllabi and left their students ill-prepared with no idea what to expect. His own syllabus was extensive—that was all too easy to admit—but they would each thank him later when they were actually in the ballpark in knowing what assignments were due and when.

The students packed up quickly when the class was over, and they filed out in their usual chatter. Nick bent to switch his lesson plans for the next group he was teaching, which would occur after a half-hour break. He was still listening to the shuffling of the last straggling students, and he felt an impulsive urge to talk to the boy himself, which he nearly immediately dismissed. The entire session with the new students had gone decently well, but he lost his train of thought at least twice when his gaze swept across the boy’s disinterested one.

_You shouldn’t be doubting your teaching due to some college kid’s boredom._

Maybe. That’s probably right. College kids were usually bored at some point in their classes anyway, especially on the introductory day where they weren’t actually learning anything.

Nick took a long inhale, holding it for a moment longer, before letting it out slowly. A woman knocked on the inner wood of the entry’s doorframe molding, and she poked her bright red locks around the corner.

“Hey,” she said, carrying out the vowels, “How was the first group of snobs?”

He smiled at her, shaking his head and putting his bag on the ground next to his chair. “Not very talkative. It’ll be fine. It’s before noon, anyway, and I’m sure they’d all rather be sleeping, don’t you think?”

Her laugh was as vibrant as her hair. “Maybe. One kid was on his phone the whole time in my room. As if he didn’t know why he was there in the first place, I don’t know.” She moved through the room and pushed herself up on the desk that Library Boy had occupied minutes ago.

She swung her legs back and forth as she clasped her hands in her lap. She asked with a gleam in her eye, “So, anyone cute?” She waggled her eyebrows for a special effect.

Charlotte (call her Charlie or she will apparently hit you with her hipster car) Gibbs was the professor of the Advanced Comprehension class in the room that had at one time been the kitchen of the old English house. She was known for her extensive knowledge on all things Shakespeare, even if it were something she attempted to avoid lecturing her students on, seeing it as overused and lacking of the new material her kids should be learning. She had a few years on Nick himself, but she had taken the initiative in meeting him when he was hired at the University three summers back, popping her head around the corner with a cheeky grin, which he had come to expect at the end of each class.

Their relationship at first was somewhat tense, more so on Nick’s end than Charlie’s, as she had invited him out to coffee, and then eventually lunch or dinner. It took Nick far too many weeks of their time spent together to catch on to the fact that Charlie’s hair twirling, innuendos, or how she sat too closely in the round booth of a diner meant something entirely unwanted on his end. The night he came out to her, they were walking through the park at the end of his first school year taught, and she leaned into him, taking his hand. He had given her a confused smile, oddly sure that she had figured out months ago that she wasn’t quite his type, but it only took a shy returned smile of hers for him to stop in his tracks with an “oh, shit”. She had laughed it off in the end once he completely awkwardly explained to her his interest distinctly in guys, but the tension dissipated quickly, and they moved past it easily to become close friends, and just that.

Nick shook his head, unable to quash his foolish grin in response to her question just asked. “No. I mean—well, no. Students are off-limits.”

“Uh huh. So what color are his eyes?”

He glanced up quickly to take in her curious stare before he looked back down to his hands needlessly sorting through papers. He attempted to play it off easily as he answered, “Whose?”

“Oh, come on,” she said, “There’s always _somebody_ you wish were your TA to… ah, grade your papers.” She squinted at him knowingly.

Nick pulled out the rolling chair from behind his desk and fell into it. “If that’s a metaphor, it’s shit. And it doesn’t even matter. If he’s a student, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.” He hoped he was diverting the question well, however unfair the situation felt at the moment.

Reality and irony occasionally shake hands to make an agreement in absurdism, planning to screw up somebody’s life dramatically by causing the logically unexpected to occur regardless of chance. In this case, the dice didn’t just fall off Nick’s table; they rolled into the gutter and were swept away entirely. The first guy Nick looked at with the knowledge that he was growing too old to really sleep around anymore was his damned student, and it threw away every chance he could have hoped for of actually sticking with the same person for more than a week.

Charlie’s grin slipped as she crossed her arms, giving him a concerned look. “That’s new. Usually we can at least joke about the possibilities, but…” She trailed off, tilting her head slightly as her eyebrows lowered. “Nick? What’s up?”

Leaning back in his chair, he gestured lazily in her general direction. He replied, “Nothing. Same as every other year, you know? Nothing new.” He tilted his chin up to face the ceiling tiles. She knew him too well; looking at her would make him cave and tell her everything he wished he had the capacity to control.

“Then where are the jokes, huh?” She rapped her knuckles on the desktop. “What’s bothering you?”

He felt anger flush his skin at her persistence, and he snapped, “Jesus, Charlie, it’s nothing. You know I hate that question.”

She wasn’t nearly as taken aback as another less acquainted with Nick would have been. “Right. So you just go on being all pouty and keeping whatever little secrets to yourself, and I’ll go teach my class, waiting for you to get out of this funk long enough to tell me what’s going on, as you always do.” She gave him a straight smile, slid off the desk, and left the room after reminding him of his incoming freshmen class in a few minutes.

Nick sighed heavily and dramatically, fully aware that he was completely overdoing the matter. He ran a hand over his face before dropping it at his side, all the excitement from the morning nearly drained from the sight of a single recognizable person. Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, he chuckled in spite of himself. He was actually a child, or at least acting like one to a far too extreme extent, and he needed to shake himself down to reality again. Charlie would inevitably find out about Sean eventually, as she always did, and maybe she’d pull her magic, either to make Nick move on to more important subjects, or even to—

_Don’t even consider it a possibility._

He stood up and clapped his hands together, focusing on the next task for the class. The first few students were walking into his classroom, offering him nervous and hesitant smiles as they took seats. It was surprisingly easy to reciprocate their expressions with a much more relaxed demeanor, and he was able to make it through the rest of the day generally easily, only imagining Sean with his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his countenance indifferent, as he sits in the front to the left of the professor’s desk, just three times.

_It’s an improvement?_

He’s working on it.

~*~

Four classes wrapped up somewhat quickly that day, all scheduled and scripted through introductions and syllabi. Some of the students’ questions had gotten creative, and there was an outset to the kinds of characters that would be regularly seated throughout his various classes. It was usually somewhat evident by the first day what kind of schoolyear was awaiting, and this could be tallied by the amount of participation and enthusiasm from his audience. The kids who signed up for the smaller, more concentrated classes were more often legitimately interested in the courses they chose to study anyway, as they were electives and majors versus a mandatory humanities course. It was a lucky thing to be able to teach a group of students who were genuinely interested in the acquirement of new knowledge.

Nick’s first day each year was always the kick start of something great, but he felt himself drifting through a kind of haze as the hours passed. It was a strange kind of fog that clouded his mind, and he was distracted, more distant than he normally was in engaging with the new students. It wasn’t as if he was unaware of the root cause, but he didn’t push it away or dig it up before it could spread to even more agitation. Instead, he played with the ideas it gave him, and he entertained thoughts that should have been forgotten in place of a focus on his lectures. And it was easily all to blame because of that damned boy.

It took the entire last half of the final month of summer for Nick to convince himself that Sean had only been a short expedition into a fantasy world in which he knew he would never be able to stay. His intentions lay on his job, on his students, and that was supposed to be the final verdict. The moment Sean had recurred, however, especially in person, and in his Narration class for God’s sake, the boy had basically taken a shovel and dug up all the half-assed buried hopes, daydreams, and memories.

He had to face the facts that he’d been ever-so-incessantly ignoring, obvious now in how every last thought he had since first seeing that boy so easily was revived; the veil he had put up over all the heartstrings that had existed was not nearly as thick as he had persuaded himself to think it was.

Nick had spent the rest of the day passing back and forth among his and Charlie’s classrooms and the coffee shop down the street. As of yet there were no stacks of tests and essays waiting to be graded and take up his time, so he had to waste it some other way by ambling downtown to the café.

As he had forced himself the night previous to finish the rest of his lectures for the semester, he didn’t know what to do with himself with all of the extra time.

_If you had talked to the Library Boy, you might have something to do right now that’d surely use up that extra time…_

He felt his cheeks warming at the thought, and he revolted at the idea. The kid was his student now. Like he’d told himself before, there was no surpassing that rule.

Tossing his laptop and extra syllabi in his bag, he waited in the entryway to his classroom until the last of Charlie’s students went streaming past him on their way out. Nick smiled at her when she exited last, and they walked out together, conversation occurring as effortlessly as ever.

“Alright, so it’s already half past four. I got take-out last night, so I have to cook something tonight. Want to join?” Charlie asked, nudging him in the side with her elbow, seemingly letting go of the miniscule argument earlier.

He pushed her back lightly. “You have to cook? It’s mandatory?”

Shaking her head, she said, “No, I mean, it’s like in the _How to be a Successful Adult_ rulebook, you know? We’re young, but we’re still college professors. Hell, we have our _PhDs._ We can’t be sitting around eating ramen or take-out every night. So, to prove to myself that I’m an adult, I’m going to cook.”

Nick grinned at the absurd notion, though he was unsure of how serious she was being. “Right. How long have you been sticking to this agenda?”

“Like two weeks. And don’t laugh,” she replied, catching him trying to smother it with a bitten lip. “This is real business. I can feel myself becoming more mature and successful by the minute.”

He made a complacent sound of agreement. “Good to know. Congrats.”

“You’re an ass.”

“You are what you eat,” he said, snorting a real laugh as he jogged forward a few steps, avoiding her swatting hand.

They took their respective cars, his a classic ’68 Pontiac Firebird, kept in top shape with quite a chunk of his paycheck, and hers a copper-colored Jeep Wrangler, to her apartment, a quiet yet expansive loft a town over. Nick and their friend group constantly ridiculed Charlie and her “mid-life crisis” car, though none of them had yet to be over 35.

After a quick struggle to find the right key to unlock the door, Nick tossed his bag on the living room couch before snagging a stool by the kitchen divider. He raised his eyebrows expectantly as Charlie, crossing her arms, leaned against the counter across from him.

“Are we going to talk about this?” Her tone inflected manually, as if she were trying to pose it as a question when they both clearly knew it was something more of a demand. She apparently hadn’t let go of his previous slip-up as readily as he had hoped.

He took in an affected breath, rolling his eyes. “We really don’t have to, it’s alright. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Charlie moved to the refrigerator and began pulling out various ingredients. She said without turning her head, “It wasn’t a request, Quade.”

“Yeah, yeah, fully aware. I dunno, what do you think’s going on with me?” He rested his chin on his forearms, crossed atop the marble divider.

She switched on the stove and preheated the oven. “I think there’s something you’re heedlessly attempting to ignore, and you don’t really want to confront it. But that’s any problem, really.” She glanced around at him, gauging his reaction, which he struggled to keep catatonic.

She continued, “You got weird when I brought up our annual question of cute students. Usually we joke about this sort of thing, this year it’s not funny to you. This unknown guy do something to you? You know him personally from before?”

Nick hesitated, seeing if she was just going to guess it directly considering the roll she was already on. He looked down for a moment before answering, “I guess the latter. Kid from the library, I saw him once and kept going back when I figured out his schedule. Shit.” He pushed both of his hands into his hair. “That sounds a hell of a lot creepier out loud.”

“Yeah, kinda.” She gave a sympathetic, somewhat goofy smile. “So I was right. This is new. What’s his name? How depressed are you that he’s off-limits?”

“Sean. And yeah, he sits in the front row. It’s going to be a rough year.”

Charlie turned, loading the oven with food on a metal tray and tossing pasta in the stovetop pot. She shrugged, saying, “Who knows? Who gets to define what’s ‘off-limits’ anyway, am I right? I say you just go in there—”

“No.”

“—and maybe suggest lightly he try studying at your house one night, or every night if he so chooses—”

“Charlie.”

“—and who knows? Suddenly, as if by accident, you’re both spontaneously pantsless and—”

“I’d lose my job.”

“— _voila_! Magnificent maneuvering.”

He gave her a flat look, but the humor was there. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”

Charlie turned to front him again, her grin only growing mischievously wider. “But you’re willing to try?”

Nick’s face began to burn again. He answered cautiously, “No. I don’t want to lose my job. And he’s just adorable, I don’t know anything past that.”

“So wait until he begins to hand in assignments, starts answering questions in class. Find out his personality through that, right? I see potential.”

“I see myself being handed a compulsory resignation paper from the dean.”

She shook her head mirthfully, replying, “You never know unless you try. Give it some time. Be subtle. These things happen all the time.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and he remained quiet as he collected two plates to set the table. Charlie bumped his shoulder playfully as they moved about the kitchen, but she didn’t push it any further until they were sat across from each other with a surprisingly decently cooked meal.

Nick gazed at her thoughtfully for enough time for her to question his thoughts.

He clenched his jaw before giving way to a smile that had surfaced too quickly. “So what do you think I have to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize it's been a while. I kind of lost motivation. That's just typical writer's block, though, so it'll happen. Leave a comment telling me what you think. I post for the constructive criticism.


	4. Expectations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick introduces a new project for the class to work on just as a tardy Sean quite publicly bursts through the door. Charlie attempts to joke around with Nick after she sees his student for the first time in person, and he realizes just how far he's going to have to break the rules to get what he wants.

It was an easy thing in Nick’s eyes to visualize the days after the introductory class of his course as only an incline, increasing more slowly at first before becoming a sharp upward cant. Every day forward he would be able to watch his students take in the knowledge he hopefully well taught them, and they would reciprocate in giving him steadily improving content.

The students themselves probably wouldn’t notice the difference until there had spanned enough time between the start of the year to whenever they could reflect back on how much they had learned and accomplished. A junior year Creative Narration class wasn’t an insignificant feat to graduate from with high marks; Nick tended to stray far from being a lenient teacher, and slack from his students was one of the most effective ways to set him off. His idea was that if there were work to be done, then there are borders of expectation set as well. These areas should be considerably exceeded if the worker were looking for praise or even approval. He carried this motif to the classroom.

Already on his third cup of coffee and buzzing with anticipation, Nick crossed his arms with a smile as his morning class rolled in. They took the seats that they had assumed the day before, a curious thing when it comes to students: they’ve been ingrained for so long with the idea of specific apportionment that something as freeing as the ability to choose where they want to go will result in their having stayed exactly in the same place they’re used to. People tend not to like change.

Nick glanced down to his lecture notes as the students before him used the final seconds before the start to pull out their laptops and placed their own coffee cups a safe distance away on their desks. One by one, they adopted that look of expectation towards him as they settled down, sending him his cue.

He rightfully took these looks as an initiative to start talking, but he paused as he noticed the front desk just to the left of his own still empty.

_Where is he?_

It shouldn’t matter. The boy had no authority to stall his lesson; if he was late, then so be it. If he didn’t show at all, so be it. It wasn’t a subject to loiter on.

_Maybe he asked to switch classes. Maybe he thought you really were boring._

_Maybe it’s a good thing. Pay attention to the class._

Maybe it’s not, though. Nick’s stomach lurched at the thought for a reason he couldn’t quite understand. If the kid didn’t come to class today, if he happened to leave the course altogether, it could honestly be somewhat of an advantageous occurrence. Or at least make it the comfortable situation it should have been in the first place without his distraction. Nick’s trains of thought might actually be able to chug along at a regular pace without randomly falling off the tracks multiple times within an hour.

He moved past that thought. The good of the entire class was much more important than just that of a single student, so Nick nodded to the group and addressed them, “Good morning, guys. Easy part’s over from here on out. Weekly essays, as you’ve already been aware of, I’ll assign today. You know that each week there’ll be a new theme on which the essay must focus, and it’s only starting at five thousand words. Should only take you few hours if you really try, so don’t bother getting all stressed about it yet.

“Like you’ve been learning for years, there are multiple forms of essays, but because this is a Creative Narration class, you’ll be centering on the actual narrative essay for a majority of the time. Occasionally there may arise a day when I want to incorporate a different kind of essay into the lesson just for its effect, but you won’t have to worry about that until later.”

Nick slid a piece of paper out from underneath his laptop. On it was a list of names of each of the students, and he looked around at the barely-familiar faces.

“I don’t really know your names yet,” he continued, “and I can’t assign them to faces yet, either, but that’ll come with time, as it does every year. You’re all lucky to be able to be in a classroom this small, and you’ll all come to know each other and me quite well, which will definitely come in handy down the road.

“You know, while I’m thinking about it, five thousand words is kind of short, do you think I should add onto that count?” Nick gazed around at the dozen seated students, some of whom rolled their eyes or groaned to themselves. “I’m not going to know what you think unless you tell me.”

“How ‘bout next week? This week just start us off easy. We’ll write better if we’re not bogged down with an essay on top of all the other work we’ve got, you know?” A voice from the right side spoke up.

Nick’s eyes immediately moved to scan the list again, singling out the names he assumed would fit the boy who had spoken. He tried a few out, “Uh, Patrick?”

“No, try again,” came the student’s response, adorned with an amused grin as he realized what Nick was doing.

“Okay, what about… William?”

“Nope.”

“Right… Dan?”

The boy laughed, shaking his head.

“Darn,” Nick muttered, smiling himself now. The rest of the class looked on, entertained. “Alright, Gabe, thanks for the suggestion.”

“Wrong guy, Prof,” another boy spoke up, whom Nick assumed to be Gabe.

“Alright, give me another try, Nate?”

The first student nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“First try, I’m good at this game,” Nick said, putting down his list to a few scattered laughs in his small audience. “Like I said, it’s going to take a bit. I’m not old and senile like some other professors, so it’s not like it’ll be the end of the year and I still won’t know who you are. I’ll probably be good by the end of next week, if not earlier.”

He glanced back at the itinerary to get the class back on track. “Anyway, the theme for this week is really just going to be write a short story. And I mean _short_ story. I have to read and grade these, so don’t make it longer than ten pages. Feel free to well-exceed five thousand words, but try not to—”

The door in the back opened suddenly, and a disheveled, hurried mess of a person stumbled through the opening.

Nick’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he waited for whatever the person was going to say when he realized it was Sean, clutching his bag to his side as he looked up with wide eyes.

“I, yeah, I’m sorry, I know I’m really late. Missed the bus, and then my damn bike got a flat.” He met Nick’s stare for a moment before glancing back at the ground with a sheepish smile. “I’m not going to bore you listening to the excuses, so…” He stepped cautiously forward and then proceeded to his seat, right in front of Nick himself. He refused to look up at the teacher and instead stubbornly stared at his laptop as he pulled it out and flipped it open.

Nick’s response had gotten caught somewhere between his throat and his mouth, and he felt his face grow aggravatingly hot at just the sight of the boy’s disarray.

_So that’s what he looks like out of breath._

He blinked hard, forcing himself to clear his throat and his mind.

_Is your face scarlet because of the boy himself or because of your thoughts?_

It took far too much willpower to move back to his lecture notes and wrench his eyes away from the slipping collar of the student’s shirt, but he managed to succeed in it, angrily berating himself for getting so carried away. Nick actually could somewhat pride himself later in how easily he was able to move on at the moment considering how often the picture of Sean with his hair exactly that mussed had already so frequented his mind—

_You were saying?_

“Right. Uh, it’s the second day, so I’ll cut you some slack, though it’s pretty disappointing that you manage to be so late before you could even create a good rep for yourself,” Nick spoke, his voice not quite as loud as it would have been in addressing the entire class, and yet because the room was so silent from Sean’s outburst, everyone could hear each word perfectly.

Sean grimaced in his seat, his cheekbones colored darkly. “I know, sir. It won’t happen again.”

Nick clenched his jaw inadvertently, his stomach flipping, and the title Sean had just uttered ran circles between his ears. “Right. Yeah. Good. So, uh, before that fantastic wakeup call, I think I was going on about essays?”

There were a few mumblings of agreement from various desks.

“I expect your papers to be handed in before noon next Tuesday, alright? A whole week. Honestly, I’m giving you way too much time, so thank me for it now, and forget about it being this easy in the future.”

He noticed Sean’s look of confusion at the mention of the essay as he had missed the entire explanation of it, but he ignored the wave of pity and odd guilt he felt. He continued, “Anybody have any idea what they might write about yet? It’s lacking a theme this week.”

They discussed a few suggestions, including a description of a summer charity trip to Nicaragua to work in building homes and even a school, a thriller story about an arsonist psychopath who moves to an everybody-knows-everybody small town, and a sci-fi short with the protagonist working for an illegal online hacking business. Everybody was passing around and shouting out anything that could be used for inspiration, and Nick added in a few words of wisdom when there were lapses, just to get the discussion back up and moving.

Sean fell back into the rhythm of the class after his earlier humiliation died down, and he offered some interesting digs at his classmates with stabs of sarcasm, received gracefully with laughter by the others. The blush had left his cheeks, but his grin reappeared often.

Nick clapped his hands to gain attention from the students again as he said, “This is just to get a vague idea on your writing skill and style and see where and what needs improvement. You're going to need to be prepared to take a lot of criticism, and I hope you all like the color red because you’ll be seeing quite a bit of it. Towards the end of the year, I hope to be seeing less and less inked remarks on your papers, but remember that no essay is ever deemed perfect.”

The boy Nate from earlier replied with a smug look, “And what if we were to mutually grade one of your papers? How much red ink would you expect?”

“A decent amount, honestly,” the professor answered mildly, “I know I’d follow the criteria, considering I’ve been teaching about it for years and I have a doctorate on the topic, but all graders’ judgment is different, so who knows?”

The class seemed satisfied with the verdict, shrugging or nodding in agreement. They turned to face him more fully in their seats from where they had previously been turned to discuss their story options.

“I hope you’re all at least somewhat aware of what you’re leaning towards genre-wise, if not knowing a good part of your plot already. If you’re not even in the ballpark yet, what I recommend doing is going on—” Nick stopped, lifting a hand before resuming. “Listen up, guys, because this can change your writing career completely if you remember it. If you’re stuck and want to, or even need to write, and yet you have no clue on what subject, go on Wikipedia. Sure, it’s not the ‘trustiest’ of sites, so teachers say, but you don’t need facts, you need an idea. Start sifting through some random articles. There’s a lot of weird stuff on there, and you’re bound to find some good material.”

He checked his watch, noticing they were five minutes past the hour already, and concluded, “With that, get out of my classroom.” He waved a hand toward the door.

The energy in the room was evidently high and charged after the decent conversation, and Nick was involuntarily smiling to himself in recognition of the class’s success. It was just as he had hoped: his students were engaged, and all were eager to be there, so their discussions would continue to be filled with input from everyone. Even those who hadn’t yet spoken up seemed to be involved.

As the chatter died down before him upon the students’ exit and he pulled out the next class’s papers, he felt a pair of eyes on him, and he glanced up to see Sean standing in front of his desk, clinging to his bag. Sean offered him a lopsided smirk, causing something in Nick’s chest to leap uncomfortably. He stared at the student, not because he was waiting expectantly for what was to be said, but because he himself was momentarily speechless.

“Uh, hi. Sorry again about this morning, I know I messed up. I kinda picked up on what I missed with the whole essay thing, but I wanted to know if that was it? Or was there something else?” Sean said, rocking forward on his toes before falling flat on his feet again.

Nick took a slow breath, refusing to allow himself to look away from the boy’s eyes. “Yeah. We went over criteria a bit. Five thousand words, not exceeding ten pages. Due next week in this classroom before noon. You have an idea about what you’re writing yet?”

Sean made an indecisive gesture as he responded, “Sort of. There were a lot of really good ideas being thrown around. A couple of those guys sound pretty smart, so don’t compare my papers to theirs, alright?” His mouth tilted up jokingly.

Gritting his teeth to slow the crawl of heat up his face, Nick averted his eyes for a moment, hoping to draw himself back together as professionally as he should.

_Maybe stop noticing his mouth for a second? You might be able to actually think instead of sounding like a drill sergeant?_

He smiled slightly, praying his face didn’t give away his thoughts where he hoped to look distant. “Right. No problem, that sounds fair. Seriously, though, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

_There you go, that sounds politically correct and safe._

Sean just nodded and smirked a goodbye before turning to leave. He almost ran into Charlie, who was just about to enter the room as he approached the door, and Charlie’s eyebrows immediately shot up after he had passed.

 “Going on a date, I see?” She asked in a comical tone, her face contorted in mockery.

“He was late, like considerably late, so he wanted to know what he missed,” Nick said, rolling his eyes, unable to refrain from grinning at her suggestion.

She nodded antically. “I’m sure. Did you tell him that he better make up for it?” Stepping forward, she exaggerated a wink.

Nick ran a hand through his hair and sighed, saying, “No. Cut it with the innuendos.”

Her eyes narrowed fractionally, and her next words were cautious as she tiptoed further into what she was perceiving to be dangerous territory. “Did he, perchance, give you a goofy grin that made your knees buckle, so now you’re kind of mad about the effect he has on you, but you’re trying to play it off and doing a terrible job of it?”

His smile dropped in replace of a flat, unimpressed look, and it gave Charlie all of the evidence she needed.

She grinned wickedly, her eyes flashing. Leaning against his desk, she said, “You caved way sooner than I expected. Usually you struggle to keep a secret at least a little bit longer. He’s the kid you were talking about yesterday, huh?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think I’d get to see him so soon, either. Jeez, Nick, he’s _cute_. Tap that,” she suggested with an engrossed curl to her lip.

He shook his head, the humor gone. “Can’t. By the way, your plan last night to… to ‘tap that’ as you put so nicely is awful. What teacher’s ever gotten away with this anyway without it slipping out?”

Charlie shrugged lightly, her mood unaffected by her friend’s quick downfall. “You never know unless you try?”

“You used that one already.”

“Okay, but there’s some genuine truth to it,” she argued. “I’m sure you stare at him enough, and he’s probably a tremendous distraction in here, right? You said he sits in the front, which is even better. Get him out of your system, tell him not to spread it around.”

Nick paused and shuffled the papers in front of him aimlessly. He replied slowly, uneasily, “Charlie, I don’t want him out of my system. I’m done with all of that.” Where he had glanced away in speaking, he raised his eyes cautiously to hers.

Her look of surprise wasn’t lost by him. She nodded a few times before her demeanor sobered. She said earnestly, “So your fun side’s dead.” Her grin flashed back instantly when he threw himself back in his chair with a huff.

“You make me sound old. I pride myself in my still being young, and I know you do, too, so shut it,” Nick shot back as he quit trying to fight the incitement that accompanied Charlie’s presence.

“Look, I know my plan last night was a joke,” she said, sitting on the edge of a student’s desk. “I didn’t think you wanted this to last. In that case, we have to revise our agenda.”

“We didn’t have an agenda. You literally just told me to ask him to take his clothes off when he has a question about an essay.”

“Right.” She smiled at her own humor. “I mean, that could still work, I wouldn’t rule it out immediately. We just have to edit the genius a little bit.”

He sighed, looking up to her expectantly as he crossed his arms. “I’m not doing anything. I know I joked about it yesterday, but reality’s going to hit me a little bit harder every day forward. This is so wrong.” He leaned forward and scrubbed his face with his palm.

Charlie shrugged again, unseen by him as she stood. “Alright, then we’re somewhat moving on for the time being. Improvise daily. Anyway, you said he was late this morning?”

“Yeah. Crashed through the door like fifteen minutes into the class already,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Takes the bus, but he missed it. Went to ride his bike, had a flat tire. He looked like…” He trailed off, imagining Sean’s wild eyes and hair.

Charlie bit back a smile at the dazed look on Nick’s face. “Right. I get the picture. Better not become routine.”

He nodded in agreement, checking his watch. “No doubt. Freshman class is coming in, so—” He gestured towards the door as he had done with his students earlier.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Charlie said over her shoulder as she weaved through the desks. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

~*~

Nick went home that night with the image of Sean bursting through the door ingrained in his mind. There was no escaping it in whatever methods he tried, first in writing a potential article for a magazine request (they came through periodically, and he was a somewhat regular with the _New Yorker_ ), but his mind was elsewhere. He then tried music, but he ended up staring at the ceiling with the tunes just background noise. His final resort was to wrap his knuckles in black tape and go down to the basement.

While he had some gym equipment in his penthouse with the back room on the first floor littered with dumbbells and resistance bands, a lifting bench in the corner, the basement was a public facility to all in the apartment building. Each patron paid a monthly fee for its upkeep and a membership as it was decked out as a regular gym might appear. It was a usually unheard-of occurrence for an apartment complex, but when one of his neighbors suggested they set it up, Nick jumped right on board with the project. The idea was that it was easily accessible and more private than a public facility, and when the idea came to life, all the people in the building seemed to approve.

When the elevator opened into a sweeping, expansive room, the floor matted and the walls overlain with mirrors, he stepped forward, dropping a workout bag on the bench closest to the hanging heavy bag. The room was otherwise empty, the others at work or dinner.

He stretched his shoulders, ghost-punching to loosen the muscles in his arms before moving to box. Turning up the music, he assumed a good stance and went at the bag, his back twisting left to right as his fists connected solidly with the reinforced plastic. He began muttering counts under his breath, a “one, two” in varying patterns to correspond with each hand as it landed, and his mind started to clarify as he stopped shifting through the rubble.

He had work to do, and quite a bit of it. He had his own collection of stories to be written, some articles to finish and be sent in to be published in some magazine issues; he was a college professor, and that’s nearly a fulltime job in and of itself. Regardless of how much work he might put in front of him, it was pretty clear that it could only cover him for so long.

The kid was young. Junior in college, it was safe to say he was about 20 years old. Same height as Nick himself, peaking at six feet, with an athletic figure.

_And that’s all you know, the superficies._

Well, the guy was smart, or he wouldn’t be able to get into Nick’s class. He had a sense of humor and was personable, as seen in his interactions with the rest of the students. Sort of a sarcastic joker, really, with that ever-present and goofy grin.

The sound of Nick’s knuckles slapping against the plastic got faster, harsher. He needed to disregard the facts. Sure, he’d run through them multiple times to come up with some other conclusion, but it always returned to the same verdict: boundaries.

He could always neglect these notices and go forward with the whole pining-after-a-student thing, but if anything happened and it ended on a bad note, Nick was entirely out of a job with a dark scar vitiating his record.

His mind eventually drifted off the subject, procrastinating it until later confusion as per usual these past couple of weeks, and he started spelling out what to write in his requested articles. He had three due at the end of the week, one of which was already finished and published. It was a short about an introverted, socially awkward stutterer who overcame his difficulties to become a successful ASL teacher, an idea that had come to him after meeting one of his brother’s friends over the summer. Nick had actually received a few appreciative emails from some readers from varying spots around the country thanking him for creating a story they could relate to well.

The next two were of whatever subject he could fabricate within a week, and he hoped that the random Wikipedia search that he’d suggested to his students would prove sufficient. It’d been useful the last few stories he’d written, as the site really contained some wild information.

When enough time passed and he was pathetically hitting the bag, his arms drained of strength, he moved back upstairs. He showered as fast as possible to prevent any pseudo-deep “shower thoughts” bombarding him and causing him to waste time and water, and cooked up dinner before bringing it over to his office.

Over the course of the rest of the week, Nick hoped to introduce to the class some new techniques in writing, and if they hadn’t already guessed, they’d be doing more actual writing than they had ever done in their lives. It was the only way to develop sufficient skills. He himself had done so much physical pen scribbling and typing while he was earning his doctorate that he remembers icing his hand every other night, even going so far as to try to teach his left to write effectively in the case where his right was inutile.

His receiving of their short essays should be an interesting one; he had quite a varied group of dedicated students. It was an opportunity to see whom he was really dealing with, like a trip inside their psyches. Every year their stories were always so completely random, but this year there was a particular one that he couldn’t quite wait to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie's kind of really fun to write. She's just so energetic and full of life, and it's great. Nick's got a lot to think about, especially concerning the fact that he knows basically nothing about the boy he's obsessing over.  
> Leave a comment, tell me what you think. The criticism is needed.


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